Fully Body Control

So the adventure into fitness is an adventure in muscle and mind control. To be in control of yourself, stay away from the toxins life has to offer, and to take in the goods life has to offer that will make you stronger and happier.

Now I'm not just talking about staying away from tobacco, alcohol, and drugs. There's a little more to full control. Full power over your body doesn't mean you're dependent on getting your morning time caffeine rush so you can have, "energy". Heck, I'll say it now, if you have to drink coffee to wake up in the morning, you're a downright wimp. Same goes for those with a sugar issue, "Oh, I couldn't say no! Those twenty six Oreo's I had for dinner was the only good tasting thing I had to eat!" Crap!!! I don't want to hear it!

   Same goes for alcohol, "I got drunk because my friends were doing it too!" Pier pressure, yeah, I'll talk about that too. I'll cover everything that's wrong with society. The issues that follow the young and the issues that follow the old, and if not avoided, will follow you into a dark alleyway to maul you, and ninety nine percent of the time, it'll succeed in beating the crap out of you.

   Now the thing about the toxins of life, most of them aren't illegal, and a lot can't be arrested for their seducing ways that entice you to give that burning hay stick a try. Okay, really, other than a bunch of friends who look cool, why would you want to try something that would destroy your body? Ease the pain? Make things better for you?

   Every single time, something harmful that somebody gets into to ease pain because of it's numbing affect that feels like a healing effect will cause worse damage.

   Say if someone has sever depression because of a chemical imbalance, their life isn't doing so good, they're having suicidal thoughts, and they have no where to go for what they can see ahead of them. Nothing but a dark path they've lost their selves down.

   But something different happens, they see some people at the park on the pull up bars doing muscle ups and levers, they're on the ground hopping on their hands and doing flips, they seem to be different than most of the people in the park, they're happier, they're stronger, they seem to be doing something they love that takes their minds away from similar issues that they've learned to deal with.

   This person wants to be just like those people, they know hard work is what it takes, but they want to be happy, they want something that heals the pain instead of numbing it. So what is it that will take it away? Something beneficial, something new, something they love to do.

   I'm not talking just about exercise as far as finding something that you all love to do. Find something that will motivate you to keep moving. Something that motivates you will give you a place that you have control. The things that motivate us are the things that we have control of because it's something we can work to customize to our desires.

   The idea to have control over your muscles will give you mental strength. To have physical strength mental strength is required. Usually, a fitness expert is pretty hard headed, and that's because they're good with their body, and they've made their minds up on how they're going to live their lives.

   You should already have done that by now. Decide what kind of person you'll be, we all go through a phase in puberty where we discover who the person that we're going to be really is. Each of us individually change over the years, but with us we keep our morals. Some of us change those, and can either regret it or be more than glad to have done so.

   From a religious perspective, God wants us to be happy. To be happy does not mean to be a party animal every single night and sleep during the day. What it means to be happy, is to be happy with the person we are, and to be happy with the decisions we've made and make.

   If you're going to want to discover just what you find joy in and how to become happy because you know that what you're doing is the right thing, you need to study yourself, think about it, decide who you are and who you're going be. The decision is to be made early in our lives, but I've seen that decision made later on in life plenty of times.

   It doesn't come easy, you have to work to be happy, it's actually more work to be unhappy than it is to be happy. Controlling your impulses is a strength that comes easily, and is something you can very easily bear. In fact, self control will help hold you up.

   Lack of control, is much more work. It's a routine, it's a cycle, a habit, something that rotates itself up until the moment of you going over the edge.

   An addiction makes you rely on something. Without control, it's substance and material things that cause us to fall as creatures of habit. Loss of control brings us down, it takes control of us, weighs us down, makes us weaker, and we start to lose control of our decisions that we make in the future.

   Control brings a power that we could never have without it. To have full body control, we must have both physical and mental strength on our side. With both you will be a powerful person. The decision to be what you want to be is all up to you.

Destruct to Construct

Think of your body as if it were a pile of bricks without mortar. But there's a giant tub of it and you have to make that pile of bricks stronger and immovable by taking them all apart, and putting the mortar onto the bricks layer by layer. It's a timely procedure, and you must take the bricks apart to bring them back together and make them stronger.

Your body is just the same way. For instance, for a stronger hold in the more important places of the brick, you're required to use more mortar, your lower body for instance, you need more weight or more numbers in reps to make it proportionate to your upper body.

   Breaking down your muscles shouldn't be brought to the point of pain when exercising. It shouldn't hurt when you exercise. If it hurts afterwards, such as being sore from a nice and heavy leg day, that's fine. But destruction shouldn't mean literal destruction. The reason I say destruct to construct, it that muscular tissue will break down when your exercise, and rebuilds itself stronger than it last was. But taking this in a literal sense is a dangerous procedure. Now, I don't have anything against cross fit because I don't do it, but that is a perfect example of the wrong destruction for construction.

   Break it down to build it up. It sounds almost like a dance phrase, it's a reality in exercise. To make a stronger structure, you have to take apart the old structure to bring up a new and more powerful structure.

   

Explosive Power

The level and way you expel your power in a movement is done in one of two ways. Either explosively, or over time. Explosive power is important to have if you're a fan of extreme calisthenics, and doing things like double flips and high jumps. All in all though, it's good for your body to have that kind of power in reserves.

In advanced calisthenics, ongoing explosive power is a big factor. In general calisthenics to just be in shape, you'll use it once in a while but not all too often.

   Now if you're looking to get all swolled from body weight, explosive power will be your best friend. That and one armed front levers.

   Repetitive motion of explosive power is how you do such things as break down your calves to make them sore and build stronger ones. Because your calves are usually a harder muscle to break down, things like explosive workouts are good to work on those. For instance, if I do about thirty front flips over the course of an hour in one of my tricking/idiocy sessions, my calves will be nice and sore the next day.

   Now be careful with explosiveness, you can get hurt if you use it wrong. The idea of explosive workouts is to work in your boundaries, but to cause your body to get used to unusual amounts of shock. Unusual and boundaries are two different things in exercise.

  Boundaries are something to stay within, something to test, but something to be careful of as well. Pushing the limits to an unusual weight or movement is what unusual usually is. Get my vibes?

   Working to bring up your explosive power is done by practicing it itself, not just doing exercises to bring it up. Now don't get me wrong, those exercises to bring it up are very important and beneficial. In fact, I don't where I would be if it weren't for pistol squats and multiple plate dead lifts.

   Explosive power all over is just like balance all over. The more the better.

Surface Balance

To have control of your balance on any surface is an acquired but worthy skill.

To have good balance, you must have a good muscular structure. Not the kind you are born with, but the kind you earn with hard work.
   Now I'm going to talk about surface balance. The kind of balance where you are stable on any possible surface. It's easy to see people do fun things and be able to balance in certain areas without any problem. But why not be one of those people? Even if you are eighty five!
   To have joints that will hold you up, you need muscles that will hold you up. You're muscles have a thing called memory inside of them, memory is the ability to know just how to move and contract to perform a proper exhibit of strength or balance.
   Now don't think I'm just talking about standing on your hands. Sure that's a fantastic way to figure out your balance, but being able to balance on your feet as well as you possibly can, is something you really ought to consider.
   Exercises like pistol squats, squats, jumping squats, high jumps, calf raises, single leg calf raises, jumping jacks, and all that fancy stuff gives you strong muscles. And if you can generally do something like twenty five pistol squats on one leg no problem, you'll probably be able to walk over a bunch of uneven rocks and move through a mud pit no problem.
   Now to talk about all around. I think that humans were designed to be able to balance on more than just their feet. There's a reason we can actually stand on our hands. Look at monkeys, can they stand on their hands? I think not, because they do not have the muscular structuring proper enough for such movement! Humans? Well you see, we're intelligent, we have minds that we make things happen with, such as standing up on our hands, as well as doing flips off one leg and spinning through the air like a drill bit.
   You must have a strong body to teach it balance on all surfaces, move from one to another and slowly but surely, it becomes incredibly strong and immovable.

The Planche Challenge

For those of us who are crazy, and have hydraulic shoulders, this will test your planche abilities. Shall we start?

Please make sure you're strong enough to perform certain movements as of they may be dangerous and harmful to those who are not yet ready for such feats of strength.

1. Perform straddle planche for 15 seconds.

2. Perform fingertip straddle planche for 10 seconds.

3. Perform 5 planche push ups in a row.

4. Pick body up from ground in planche position and hold for 5 seconds.

5. Perform full planche for 5 seconds.

6. Perform 5 planche push ups in a row.

Do you hurt now? Probably. Have fun trying to do this. It takes a while to get there.

Exercise No. 25 Elbow Lever

This is super easy if you understand your balance and if you have the turtle freeze down. The elbow lever is a turtle with both elbows in your stomach. You very well know how to do that by now I'm sure, so I'll give some tips on how to do it on a bar with both hands and one hand. I would offer a bar planche tutorial, but I'm not there yet, so just wait.

Elbow levers are also good for the forearms if done on bars because of the gripping strength you'll put into it keeping yourself upright.

   Now don't get cocky, I said these are easy, but that doesn't mean you'll get it on the first round if you're trying it on a bar. In fact, that's what I'm here for, to get you looking like that guy right there, and myself.

   So to begin, you should be able to do a turtle. Learn that first if you haven't, it's in a previous post, give it a look.

   So now we're taking it to your bar workout. Let's get started. Your hands need to face backwards, grip the bar, and when you start out, get into dip position but with your hands close together. Lean forward onto your elbows, your legs will probably be hanging at first, but it's going to an uncomfortable position for the first few tries until you get it.

   Once you get comfortable in the elbow lever with your legs hanging down, make yourself uncomfortable by bringing them up. Your triceps will probably have some say in this as well as your shoulders, but that's more of the balance, not so much strength.

   The only real strength used in this as stated is the forearms. Lean forward, not to the point of falling over, but to the point of when you feel your body start to be straight. Because when learning this on the ground, most people lean forward and their legs go up, but because you're on the bar, you're legs will be facing downwards. It's basic back strength and memory, but build it up to the point of being able to hold your body erect.

   When you get tired of the regular elbow lever, you can get into the one armed elbow lever. Now you should learn the one handed turtle freeze. Stick your elbow further inwards into your stomach, and go through the same steps I took you through, just on one arm.

Power Output

Your power output depends on a lot of things when you are exercising. When performing a movement that's hard, but doesn't last long, you're power output will usually be different compared to something such as running or cycling for a long distance.

Now, when you have a crowd or a group of people cheering you on, you usually end up being able to conserve energy as you use large amounts of it at the same time, and sometimes, it's just not a good day to do what you're doing.

   Careful what you do when your adrenaline is flowing, sometimes you can really mess yourself up. Injury can happen, muscles can get torn, know what you're doing before you're going to do it. Be sure it's something that you've built yourself up to instead of doing it as something you want to do because you want to be able to say that you're stronger or you're showing off to a bunch of people.

   Individually, we have a certain amount of power output that meets up to our physical standard. That power output can be built up and made stronger as we work to become stronger. It will become larger mentally because you will have more motivation and more idea of what you can do. When you know your strength, your power output will be of knowledge as well.

Fitness With The Outdoors

The outdoors are a big factor in fitness for myself and a deal of other people I share fitness thoughts with. Aside from the weight room, it's good to go outside and do something physically involving.

Just sitting inside all day long can warp your perspective on life. We humans were meant to be outside during the day time, that's the reason we were created as diurnal beings. We are meant to go outside in the daylight, and feel the sun on our faces.

   We spend time in the gym, we get strong, we look good, but we don't spend enough time outside! We need something, something from the sun, that something makes us even stronger.

   There's a number of good things that the sun gives us. For one, a lot of people talk about vitamin D. Vitamin D is beneficial in a number of ways, such as cell communication, absorbing calcium and phosphorus in our bones. And, gives a little color to your skin.

   The sun also gives us energy, the warmth of it provides better circulation because it obviously warms our blood. We are warm blooded, mammals in general are warm blooded, but, provided assistance by the sun aids in better circulation because it warms our warm blood even more. More questions about this? Read up on it at http://www.who.int/uv/faq/uvhealtfac/en/index1.html

  If you're in a place where it tends to rain every now and then, and you don't deal with smog, it's good to get outside, and taste the fresh air! If you go outside to run, ride your bike, play sports, play with your friends at the park, just hang out, have picnics, something outside, anywhere from three times a week to more, you're doing good. It really does help.

   So run, play sports, ride your bike, do pull ups at the park, go rowing, something! Your time in the parking lot from going to work to the gym is not enough! Spend time outside, it will make you feel good!

The MONSTER Fitness Challenge

This is a fitness test I created, and successfully finished a number of times just to see how strong I actually was. So why not see how strong you are? See if you are Monster worthy.

 

The only difference between Cookie Monster and this challenge is that you're probably going to be terrified of the challenge. So now it's time to specifically target every single muscle in a brutal way that will cause you to become so sore you won't leave the couch for a week! (depending on your calisthenic skill level) 

                             THE MONSTER


Warm up:

1. 50 push ups2. 50 squats3. 20 pull ups4. 45 jumping jacks

Pt. 1 CHEST SHOULDERS AND TRICEPS

1. 50 Handstand push ups (don’t use the wall)2. 40 Planche push ups3. Planche For 2 Minutes4. Handstand for 2 Minutes 30 Seconds5. 1:30 Tuck Planche6. 50 Tuck planche pushups7. 20 Handstand Presses8. 30 Plank Push Ups (kick feet up as you push up)9. 1 Arm push ups - 25 on each side10. 25 Chest tap push ups11. 50 Tiger bend push ups12. 40 Clap push ups13. 15 Diamond clap push ups14. 25 Controlled push ups15. 100 Push ups16. 20 Dips17. 10 Triple clap push ups18. 20 Up and around push ups19. Hollow Back for 1 minute 30 seconds20. 30 Handhops on each side21. 1 Minute of one handed handstands on each side22. Knuckle handstands for 1 and a half minutes23. Walk on hands for 40 steps24. 20 Handstand circles

Pt. 2 Back and biceps1. 1 Arm pull ups 10 each side2. 20 Muscle ups3. 40 Pull up push outs (still don't know what to call them)4. 25 Clap pull ups5. Holding onto wrist one hand pull ups 10 on each side6. 5 Front levers7. 5 Back levers8. 75 Pull ups9. 10 Archer pull ups on each side10. 5 Side levers11. 20 Extreme wide grip pull ups


Pt. 3 Balance and body control

3. 2 Minutes of one handed turtle freezes7. 1 Minute of elbow stands in each position8. 10 V kicks/applejacks

Pt. 4 Core strength

1. 40 Toe to bar leg raises2. 30 Second L sit3. 15 L sit pull ups4. 15 Super mans5. 10 Pull up position leg raises6. 25 Ground leg raises7. 20 Windshield wipers on ground8. 10 Windshield wipers on pull up bar

Pt. 5 Leg strength

1. 20 Pistol squats on each leg2. 250 Squats3. 20 Burpees4. 5 Front flips5. 10 Handsprings6. 50 1 Leg calf raises on each leg7. 60 High jumps8. 50 One foot toe hops

Pt. 6 Cardio

1. Run 1 mile2. Bicycle 10 miles


Pt. 7 Flexibility

1. Splits practicing for 5-10 minutes2. Toe touching variations3. Extreme back stretching-leg hang overs, bridges, and forward bending5. Shoulder stretching6. Toe touch in splits7. Core stretching

Cooking It Right

Food is good in any form, so you should prepare it properly if you want the best of it. Now, depending on what kind of food you eat, that's something else to talk about, but the way you prepare has a lot to say about what you're going to get out of it.

Some foods take longer to cook than others, some are better for you cooked, and others are better raw, and others are equally beneficial both ways.
   I'll give you an example. Plantains, if you're going to eat them, you cook them, because they taste better that way. Now, watermelon, you don't cook that, ever. The idea of cooking food is to enhance taste, combine taste, and get rid of any possible bacteria.
   A little later on, I'll talk about and give some recipes on foods that you can eat just about every day and how to make them properly.
   Certain things like meat and eggs should be cooked to rid them of salmonella and other pathogens that cause disease. If you're going to cook your food right, most of the time, you cook it all the way through. I know people (including myself) who always cook their foods that require cooking all of the way through before they eat them, and they are hardly ever sick.
   Depending on how sensitive you are to food in general depends on whether or not you get torn up. But cooking it prevents disease sickness by far. There's a reason man started cooking food because God said to, it keeps us well and brings out nutrients and minerals that you can't get out of raw food.
   So if you're a raw vegan, this post will probably be apostasy to you. But that's okay, because there's very very few of you.
   From talking to vegetarians, I see that the majority does cook their food a lot. It tastes good, you know, use the right oils, the right spices, stir fry a little, man, it's awesome! Now I personally couldn't go through life without use of chicken broth, butter, eggs, and milk. Same goes for the common meats cooked. Fish is something you can eat raw but usually cook.
   Iron and minerals and vitamins and all of that good stuff can brought out of foods if you cook them. So? Cook your food right, until you can smell that it's going to taste good! The right food cooked the right way, will never taste bad.

Muscle Density

The thingy with muscles being heavy and stuff, yeah, that's a subject. So let's talk about it! Important news, muscle density isn't something you need to worry about. It comes with hard work and time yes, but, you should not worry all too much about it! Because your muscle density doesn't really matter unless there's an imbalance in it.

Yes the picture is a block of metal. If you're asking that question, you're probably not very smart. Why metal? Well, it represents density. Not the music, just the substance.

   Your muscles will be dense no matter how you work them out. Question how big they will get. Regardless of your shape or size, generally your muscles will be more visible the denser they become unless you like to lift weights but eat like a horse that came off a grass only diet and don't do any cardio. Then you'll have dense muscles covered in layers of fatty tissue that's not attractive.

   Male or female.

   You'll look all over and see guys who workout, a lot, but they can't keep away from the cheeseburgers and milkshakes, so they're dense, and then they have the extra weight on top.

   But, you also have the thin healthy people who work out like beasts, and look like them.

   And last, you have those who are stocky with great genetics for massive muscles and look like Greek Gods without having to work as hard as the other guy and can lift twice as much without a problem.

   So whether you run twenty miles a day and do push ups and pull ups, or yank five hundred pound barbells from the ground like a forklift to a pillow, your muscle density will usually be the same, if not slightly different, but the size will. The reason weightlifters are so heavy is because they have a lot of super dense muscle, and a lot of it! But they're bone structure has become denser and wider as well. So it all work outs together and depends on your structure.

   Density is nothing to worry about unless it's a problem medically and is bringing up unnecessary limits.

Structural Balancing

Some people are concerned about whether or not one muscle on one side of their body is bigger than the other. And how do they even out their muscles? Well first off, imbalances are more common in people who do strictly calisthenics than people who lift weights. I'm not hating, but only stating the truth. It's how the laws of physics work.

If you have a muscle imbalance and you're a weight lifter, chances are, you're doing something very wrong. If imbalances are experienced in calisthenics, you are doing something wrong, but not to the extent of using a fifty pound dumbbell for your shoulder presses and one half that size on the other side.

   Now in calisthenics, chances are, you're probably leaning to one side a little more than the other. Everybody has their dominant side, regardless how ambidextrous you are which is incredibly rare, you tend to have a side you use the most. Left or right.

   It's entirely okay if you have a muscle balance to begin with. It doesn't make you a freak, because in the first place, you're being fit and staying fit. Now the question to even things out is quite simple. A few solutions can be followed to see how solving something of the like is possible.

    So, what you want to do is if you tend to be learning to one side more in say, your pull ups, or your push ups, or squats, anything of the like. Now if you lean to the side while doing squats with a three hundred pound barbell, chances are, you're going to fall over and the bar might kill you. But, with body weight it's a little different.

   There are certain things where you're supposed to use your more dominant side, like cheat gainer back flips or webster front flips. Aerials and B twists are part of that as well. Now, if you're trying to get big legs off of front flips and pistol squats, you might experience an imbalance in the beginning.

   You just have to work on leaning the other way, just a bit until you feel aligned. You may have the issue of feeling unaligned when you actually are because your body has succumbed to becoming so used to the position that it thinks it's in the regular movement of how that specific exercise is supposed to go. Now to re-balance your body from something so prolific in your workout routine, you only have to work a little harder until you get it better and more of a perfect form. It's not easy most times, but say if your right deltoid is larger than your left deltoid by a very noticeable difference because you're really leaning to the side in push ups without noticing it, you have to pay attention and push your body to the other side. Sometimes, if you can do this exercise in a mirror and you watch yourself until you get it right without having to pay attention, it will help a lot. I personally haven't experienced muscle imbalances, but watching myself in the mirror was how I got better at certain exercises like planches, handstand push ups, and various others.

   Now, it's unnoticeable, but your body will never be perfectly symmetrical. It's part of human life because of our dominant side. But noticeable imbalances are the ones we have to fix. Also, if it proceeds to be a persistent issue, do consider talking to your physician who will be able to help you out and give professional assistance in this problem.

   With muscle evening comes strength evening. Both sides of your body should be equally strong. If not, it's a problem that can be fixed. Don't give up.